1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of parallel processing in an electronic mail environment.
2. Background Art
Electronic mail messaging provides the ability to communicate information throughout an enterprise (e.g., send and receive messages and files between enterprise users). Electronic mail users can send, for example, mail messages, scheduling messages, directory information, and files.
Electronic mail systems provide the ability to perform mail operations. For example, electronic mail operations include the ability to send and receive messages (i.e., mail or calendar scheduling messages directory information, and/or files). Messages received by a user can be, for example, read and/or forwarded to another mail user. Further, a user can send a reply message to the sending user. Other operations may be provided to manage messages and files.
Messages in a electronic mail systems can be grouped, or queued, based on some like characteristic (e.g., the type of further processing required). For example, a submission queue can contain messages targeted for a particular location. A rerouting queue can be used to store messages that need to be routed to another location. A notification queue can contain a list of messages that have been placed in a user's incoming mail box, and for which users are to receive notification. A dead message queue can be used to identify messages that are not deliverable or returnable to the sender. A garbage collection queue can be used to contain messages that can be removed from a system. Remote queues contain messages bound for remote locations. Gateway queues contain messages destined for foreign messaging environments.
As the number of mail users increases, the number of messages to be processed by a mail system typically increases. Conversely, as the number of mail users decreases, the number of messages decreases. If, for example, messaging increases and processing capability to handle messaging remains constant, the number of messages in the message queues such as the ones discussed above can increase. Prior art systems provide the ability to serially process messages, or queue entries. However, these systems do not provide the ability to scale processing (up or down) to accommodate a change in messaging activity.